Nottingham Forest trio could be on their way out of the club, hints Paul Taylor

This article is part of Football FanCast’sPundit View series, which provides opinion and analysis on recent quotes from journalists, pundits, players and managers…

There’s only so long you can keep hold of someone before they become a burden.

With the preparations for the January transfer window seemingly in full swing across the country, journalist Paul Taylor believes that there’s set to be a number of departures from the City Ground, although there may not be much money coming the other way.

What’s been said?

Speaking during a Q&A for the Athletic, Taylor noted that the three players who are asked to train away from the first team, Costel Pantilimon, Claudio Yacob and Zach Clough all look to be on their way out of the City Ground sooner rather than later:

“Expect the club will work hard to move them both on in January. Did ask Lamouchi about this yesterday. But the dynamic is different at Forest under the current set-up. As head coach, this is really not part of his remit.

“His job is to work with the first team squad he has – and he does not regard Pantilimon, Yacob or Clough as being part of it. They remain within FFP limits by some distance, but there is no point in paying players who are not involved, if you can help it, is there.”

Check out Matchday with Max’s latest Nottingham Forest vlog in the video below…

Cut your losses?

Whilst obviously it would be better for them to get a fee for them, the writing should really have been on the wall when they couldn’t get rid of them during the summer window despite making it really clear for quite a while that they simply weren’t part of the plans.

They managed to do so with the likes of Daryl Murphy and Liam Bridcutt letting them go to Bolton Wanderers, but apart from Yacob claiming that he wants to go back to Argentina one day, there hasn’t been many hints that any of them are likely to leave.

Taylor makes a very interesting point in the latter stages of his comment, and that concerns FFP.

If Nottingham Forest are comfortably within the realms of what is allowed under the system, then they need to at least consider making a clean break, wishing them well and just letting go.

Will Nottingham Forest finish in the playoffs?

Yes

No

At the end of the day it’s better for both the club because it means they aren’t stunting the growth of the U23 players that they’re training with, and the players get the satisfaction of having a little more freedom when it comes to their futures because they won’t be burdening the next club they go to with a transfer fee.